When John Charles Olmsted (1852-1920) was engaged to plan Uplands, he was North America’s leading landscape architect. Describing his latest project as a "residential park”, it was the first large scale neighbourhood in Canada to be laid out with curving streets and irregular building lots. Uplands has been protected by a development bylaw since 1910, with a 76 acre park created within the subdivision in 1946; an early example of a natural green space serving as a planned suburban amenity.